Haydn: Andante & Variations in F minor, Hob.XVII:6 (Sonata - un piccolo divertimento)

Widely considered to be one of the best-known concert pianists of our time, Grammy Award winning American pianist Emanuel Ax (b.1949) releases this new CD, featuring Three works he has never recorded before. This release includes significant sets of variations by major composers Beethoven, Haydn & Schumann.

This is Volume 4 in Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s project to record the complete piano sonatas of Haydn. The last volume in the series (CHAN10689) was a Critic’s Choice in Gramophone, an Instrumental Choice in the magazine BBC Music, Editor’s Choice in the magazine Classic FM, and Recording of the Month in MusicWeb International.

In the words of Bavouzet himself: ‘Each volume of this ambitious, extended project will arrive over the years like a postcard, dispatched during my travels with scant respect for chronological considerations, but undertaken with the greatest passion for trying to convey as vividly as possible to twenty-first-century ears the boundless treasures of this sublime music.’

He also notes: ‘We often forget how little information Haydn left us in the scores of his keyboard works: few indications of dynamics or of phrasing, and the briefest guides to tempo. This task is never anything other than absolutely fascinating, but for the performer it is also testing, and even risky. He must, even more than usual, create his own world, his own logic, left only to hope that, in the absence of tangible evidence, he will not distance himself too far from the composer’s intentions, which remain forever unknowable.’

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet received a BBC Music Award in 2012 and a Gramophone Award in 2011 for his recording of works by Debussy and Ravel (with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Yan Pascal Tortelier). His recording of Bartók’s Concertos (with Gianandrea Noseda and the BBC Philharmonic) was short-listed for a Gramophone Award, and he has won multiple awards for his recording of the complete works for solo piano by Debussy, including a BBC Music Magazine Award for Volume 3 and a Gramophone Award for Volume 4.

Anne Queffélec is among the most popular pianists of her generation, appreciated for the diversity of her repertoire, as her impressive discography testifies. In addition to the French repertoire, she has became particularly known for her performance of works by Mozart and Scarlatti. Her recordings include works of J.S. Bach, Scarlatti, Liszt, Chopin, Schubert, Mozart, Fauré and Debussy.

“For my first recording I wanted to conceive a recital programme that would be diverse yet coherent, encompassing different periods of the piano repertoire…..” So states Cathy Krier in the booklet accompanying this release and she lives up to her promise playing music by Chopin, Dutilleux, Scarlatti, Haydn and Mullenbach. Born in Luxemborg and at the start of a glittering career, Cathy Krier has already received international acclaim for the emotional subtlety and maturity of her playing.

A refined musician and sought-after performer on all keyboard instruments, Yasuko Uyama Bouvard appears as soloist, in duo with Isabelle Poulenard, or with various ensembles such as the Sacqueboutiers de Toulouse, Les Passions, A Sei Voci, Les Éléments… As a soloist or as a continuo player she has made several records, for which reviews acknowledge the finesse and virtuosity of her playing.

Haydn composed 62 piano sonatas, although it is suspected that many works were lost. Here we see three works from the period 1766-1780 and the sonata in E flat, as a later work of 1794. Alexander Kobrin is an internationally acclaimed Russian pianist and is a winner of numerous piano competitions. Live performances have included the Wigmore Hall and the Royal Albert Hall.